ENGLISH STUD FACTS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XV, Issue 896, 9 May 1907, Page 12

ENGLISH STUD FACTS.

Year by year the winning sires’ list serves to show us that we in this country (writes the London “Sportsman” scribe “Vigilant”), adopt an all too narrow test when accepting the dictates of Fashion in making our choice among the sires of the coming seasons. True, we find at the top of the list for the season just past Persimmon and Ladas, two brilliant classic winners, but neither of them has altogether satisfied expectations hitherto, though it seems almost absurd to find fault with Persimmon, seeing that he is the sire of Sceptre, Zinfandel, and Keystone 11. Next to Persimmon and Ladas, however, comes Gallinule, who is the stock example of a horse who would never have been heard of as a sire had he been treated with the rigid neglect which would have been accorded to him in England, and then comes Carbine, son of Musket, whom we allowed to be exported for a paltry 500gns. Musket was a good horse on the turf, but not good enough to claim the mint-mark of Fashion. Persimmon’s is a case in which there has been fashion from sire to son through many generations—Blacklock, Voltaire. Voltigeur, Vedette, Galopin, St. Simon, and Persimmon were all of them in the first class, and most of them the best of their respective years. Ladas, on the other hand, was by Hampton, who, though a most genuine and honest little horse, was no wonder, except by comparison with his original status as a selling-plater. Indeed, I should think that Musket was a distinctly better horse than Hampton, who even when fully matured, and at his best, was considerably inferior to Silvio over any distance. More than that, Hampton had not the physique which we are accustomed to associate with a likely stallion, and it is a wonder that he ever got a fair chance in England. Perhaps he would not have done so had he not been lucky at the outset. The very first foal by him was Rookery, who proved quite smart enough to bring him into notice, and after that he went right on until he had three Derby winners to his credit, and two other sons, Highland Chief and Royal Hampton, who narrowly missed the Derby. Indeed, Hampton was a great deal better stallion than he was a racehorse, and now we see him represented among the winning sires, not only by Ladas, but also by Ayrshire, than whom there is no more consistently successful stallion, and he is also the maternal grandsire of Persimmon, not to mention Florizel 11., who is also well up in the list for 1906. Now Florizel H. is another horse whose performance did not warrant his being ranked in the first class, but he was a good horse over a distance of ground, and his brother, Persimmon, brought him a vicarious measure of fame, so that he got his chance at the stud right enough, and did not fail to make the most of it, for such sons

as Volodyovski, Doricles, Floriform, and Mackintosh came as the result of his very first season. Love Wisely has amassed a big total, and here we have a still more striking illustration of the good that comes from travelling outside the margin of Fashion, for Love Wisely is a son of the oncedespised Wisdom, who never won a race in his life, and was bought by the late Mr. Hoole for 50 guineas. For less than that sum the same gentleman purchased Enigma, whom he mated with Wisdom several times, and she produced, among other fillies, Florence, the famous Cambridgeshire winner with 9st 11b; Tact, the dam of Amiable, winner of the Oaks; and Gravity, dam of William the Third. It is difficult to understand now that a horse with Wisdom’s credentials could ever have made his way to the front in this country, though such a phenomenon is frequent enough in factlreland and the colonies, but the fact remains that Wisdom did undoubtedly most thoroughly establish his position, and ultimately commanded a 250-guinea fee without any difficulty. We may, I think, assume that Love Wisely was his best son, though Barefoot and Sir Hugo were classic winners, and Chesterfield, Rightaway, and Veracity were also good ones. Love Wisely not only won the Ascot Cup as a 3-year-old, but he trained on the following year, and ultimately put the Jockey Club Stakes to his owner’s credit, beating in that race Velasquez and Chelandry, who represented the best form of that year next to Galtee More.

One feature of this season’s results is that no sire stands out by himself as having beaten the rest easily. Persimmon himself has scored little more than a third of Stockwell’s record total of 1866, when stakes were nothing like so valuable as they are now, and again we have to notice the comparatively small number of individual winners with which the leading sires are credited. Sixteen winners is really a very small number for a horse who has been long enough at the stud to have aged sons and daughters as well as two-year-olds in training, and has had a full subscription list each year. It was no uncommon thing for Stockwell or Newminster to be the sire of as many as forty winners in a season, and in Australia the principal stallions are often represented by as many winners as were Stockwell and Newminster. Thus, I see that in the past season Grafton, half-brother to Polymelus, had 44 winners of 124% races in Australia, and Simmer, by St. Simon out of Dutch Oven, had 36 winners of 91 races.

Even Bill of Portland, who has been long enough in England to have four-year-olds running here, had, nevertheless, 15 winners last season in Australia, which is within one of the total number that have placed Persimmon at the head of the list in England this season.

This point, viz., the smallness of number of winners credited to the individual sires of the present day, is one which I confess I cannot understand, more especially as we see that in Australia the imported horses at once become much more prolific of winners. Is it that the competition is keener in England than it used to be, or than it is now in the colonies? I can hardly think so. Taken through out, the fields in Australasian races are a good deal more numerous than they are in this country, and if we look at the entry for the Melbourne Cup, recently won by Poseidon, we see that it numbered no fewer than 163. The race is more nearly equivalent to our Cesarewitch than any other English race, and with all our horses in training we never get nearly such an entry as that for the Cesarewitch. Some few horses do indeed even in these days maintain a reputation for siring a considerable number of winners, and Ayrshire has been among the best in this respect, as was St. Angelo until he was sent to France; but, on the whole, the position is unsatisfactory. If we take it, for example, that Persimmon has stock of four seasons running for him, that is to say ages ranging from 2 to 5 — and, as a matter of fact, there are some older ones —those four seasons represent the produce of 160 mares, i.e., 40 mares a season, and the result of 16 winners this year means that it is a 10 to 1 against a mare producing a winner. r ?his may be slightly overstating the case, for of course, a 3,4, or 5 year old may have won last year, if not this, but the position as regards the results of any one year is clearly as indicated, and will appear even worse if we take a six-year-old and aged stock into account. Though he heads the list, Persimmon has on

other occasons done much better, as, for instance, when his stock won 36,810 sovs in 1902. That, however, was in in the specious days of Sceptre. Next year we are likely to see considerable changes in the list, for the leading sires have few good two-year-olds to represent them, except in the case of Gallinule, who depends on Slieve Gallion. Laveno may take a leading place with Galvani, and Orwell might bring Mackintosh into a forward condition. On the other hand, Keystone 11., if she continues to do well, is qualified to amass a big total for Persimmon, and Troutbeck will continue to be a tower of strength for Ladas; but I shall be surprised if any one sire comes prominently to the front next year any more than has happened during the season just ended.